The former First Secretary of State, Damian Green, says he is backing Tom Tugendhat to be the next leader of the Conservative Party.
Mr Green said the government was ‘vulnerable’ to a well-led Tory party, particularly on the economy, citing Rachel Reeves' narrative as 'nonsense'.
Speaking on GB News Damian Green said: “I hope that the next leader is going to be Tom Tugendhat. As security minister, with a background in the military he's absolutely up there on old Security Affairs, which is what really matters in a difficult and increasingly dangerous world.
“But also he's producing domestic policies that I think are really interesting. He gave an interview to The Daily Telegraph yesterday talking about family policy and how we need to find ways to use the tax system to effectively encourage people not to wait as long as they are now to have families. That actually, we need to do something about that?
“I think of all the accusations you can make against Tom, the idea that somebody who was a senior official in Helmand at the height of the Afghan war is completely untrue and he is having a very successful tour around the conservative membership at the moment.
“But the underlying point I would make is that the next leader of the Conservative Party, to be successful, is going to be measured by whether they can win a general election, and to do that, you need 10 or 12 million people voting for you, not just our members.
“Yes, I love them dearly, but nevertheless, just because they're members of a political party, they are by definition, unrepresentative of the wider electorate. And the Conservative Party, one of the many steps we've got to take to make ourselves credible again, is to look outwards rather than inwards.
“So I want the next leader of the Conservative Party to say I'm going to assemble a wide coalition again, of some people who hold very right wing views, some people who hold centre right views, and that coalition is what makes it successful. And that's why I'm supporting Tom."
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